was in a trance and utterly ignorant of all she had uttered in the laboratory, an unacknowledged dread had possessed me that the Italian had a strong influence over her mental powers, and the words he now spoke confirmed my suspicion.
I know now also he must have exerted a power over me that subdued me almost to servility when in his presence. Whence otherwise could have come that strange mixture of abhorrence and attachment which I always felt in his company?
I listened to his harangue in amazement, and then asked him, in a faltering voice, how he could possibly suppose that Louisa was able to comprehend the secret of our search.
He smiled—his death-like smile—and drew from his bosom a small phial of cut crystal, silver-clasped and containing a bright amber-coloured liquid. It was about three parts full.
“Bright, translucent and harmless though it looks, there is nothing more powerful, more deadly than the poison this phial contains. I tell you this in order that there may be no secrets between us. Five years ago it was given to me in Rome, by one who had chosen for his study the direct action of poisons on the physical and mental powers. He is dead now, but this secret of his is alive with me.
“If a few drops of this potent poison volatilised are inhaled by any one, a dull faintness immediately ensues. Ha! I saw you start. You are right, though, you have breathed it. Listen! Under that faintness, if the organisation is of the character I desire, I can draw out the inner secrets of the soul, by the influence of a powerful exertion of will.”
How I sat there and listened to his fiendish words I cannot tell. I seemed under a spell, but I listened to him attentively and in silence. He went on:
“I found in the Signora, your wife, a mind of the most sensitive and impressible kind. What I had long suspected I proved the other night, and you yourself must have seen that, under the influence of only a few drops of this elixir, I was able to make her disclose, in an instant, truths that might have taken us months to discover. Notwithstanding its seemingly baneful effects you perceive you feel no ill-effects after inhaling it, and the Signora, your wife, though slightly overcome at the time, is now as well and as lovely as ever. See, there she is under the trees in the garden.”
I looked from the window and saw Louisa walking slowly along one of the paths. She looked exquisitely beautiful, but as I gazed I felt surrounded by an atmosphere of mystery and terror. The Italian continued speaking earnestly, and I listened to him moodily, while the serpent of ambition quietly coiled itself round my heart.
He pointed out to me, with great force, that the object of our pursuit was now in my grasp. He made light of my hesitation, and laughed at my fears. Never venture, never win, was the theme of his discourse, to which he constantly returned. As I have observed, an atmosphere of mystery seemed round me—I was bewildered. I longed, with all the desire in my being, to possess the great secret now within my reach, but I dreaded hurting a hair of my young wife’s head. I was silent.
The demon Maffi saw my weakness and indecision in a moment. His words seemed absolutely to creep insidiously into my brain. He pointed out that the present time—that very instant—was the proper time for exerting the new power we possessed.
Oh, Heaven! How can I live to think of it now? That I—I who loved her so dearly—should have gone out to her there,—in that still summer afternoon, among the flowers, and have led her into the dark, hateful shadow of that cursed room. Everything appears to me now more like a dream than a reality.
But it was done. Again, she was sitting on the couch by the window and talking with me, while the subtle Italian again glided noiselessly about the room.
Without seeing him I was conscious he had ignited the spirits of wine and had poured the deadly drops into the flame. I knew it by the faint rosy glow and a delicate perfume like that of jasmine pervading the apartment.
I hastily placed a small respirator containing an antidote, which Maffi had forced upon me, over my face, and, with a mind torn by conflicting emotions, I watched the result.
My wife’s face turned to an ashy paleness, and she darted one look at me full of pity, anger and surprise. I shall never forget that look. It rises up before me in the solemn dead of night, and will haunt me to my death. But it lasted only for an instant. She rose quickly, and again, with that unnatural air of contemptuous authority, passed across the room. She examined all the apparatus and every particular of our process, as far as Antonio had completed them. She expressed her approval of what we had done haughtily,—in such a manner as an empress might speak to her slaves. For a few moments she appeared lost in thought, and then retired slowly towards the table. She sat down again, leaning her head upon her hand, and gazing straight forward with a listless expression.
Although diffused daylight, mingled with the red glow from the tripod, spread through the room, yet I had never distinguished the form of Maffi. He either kept behind me, or else in the darker parts of the laboratory. Without seeing him, I now felt his hot breath on my cheek, as I leaned over Louisa, and I heard his hateful whisper in my ear.
“Speak to her now—ask her for the secret that we long to know—time is passing.”
I did speak to her, but she gently put my hand from her and motioned me to be silent. She still gazed forward fixedly into vacancy.
A minute or two elapsed in profound silence, until the Italian again muttered his request angrily in my ear. Trembling with anxiety and fear I spoke to her once more, but she did not seem to heed me. Urged on by Maffi’s whispered solicitations, I begged, I entreated, I threw myself at her feet and prayed that she would speak to me. I spoke wildly, but she sat pale